Minutes of the November 14 General Meeting of AMAPS

1. Danny Jaye introduced Art Weiss, our host from Thompson Learning. He introduced some of his representatives, who discussed the Thompson Learning textbooks for advanced mathematics courses, including Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Statistics, and JAVA. Solutions to the exercises and quizzes are available at the Thomson Learning Website. Textbook guides are also available. Brooks Cole Assessment (BCA) was mentioned as an active learning standard-based technology that includes online testbanks and tutorials.

2. Sharon Hoosak stated that the Numeracy Committee has been reporting to the chancellor and that surveys from the state were sent to select Assistant Principals. She introduced Bob Kane, who spoke on behalf of Linda Curtis-Bey at the Chancellor’s office.

3. Bob Kane reported that Linda asked him to remind the Assistant Principals who received surveys to complete them and e-mail them back as soon as possible. Linda and other members of the Chancellor’s staff are part of the Numeracy Committee. The Numeracy Committee is seeking input from the Math Coordinators to help the Chancellor make “informed decisions when it comes to math.” Bob also stated that there has been no communication yet on the money proposed for the Science and Math Partnership Proposal.

4. Joan Mahon-Powell, deputy to the chancellor on CUNY Collaborative, spoke next. She was involved in last year’s Chancellor’s committee on Mathematics. She distributed copies of an action plan to support mathematics in NYC for grades K-16. She said that the College Now program is in the process of being revamped because there are only a few students participating in the program. Ms. Mahon-Powell described the differences between the requirements for students to enter the ninth grade pilot program and the program for students in grades 11 and 12. The ninth grade program is meant to offer support for students not likely to graduate in four years. All students are expected to earn scores of at least a 75 on both the ELA and Math A Regents Exams in order to be accepted into a four-year CUNY school.

 
5. Linda Hefez, from district 15, summarized the content of the 8th grade assessment. She reviewed a few questions and explained how students were expected to respond. Students must be able to explain their answers in writing. Math A topics such as Sine, Cosine, and Tangent are on the 8th grade assessment. Information on each district’s performance can be accessed on the DOE web site. Teachers can access the Grow Report, and related instructional activities, at www.grownetwork.com. 

6. Sharon Hoosak distributed the State Education Department information on acceleration credit. In the discussion about Regents Exams she noted that constructing box and whisker plots and stem and leaf plots are in the Math A Regents core curriculum. She said that Regents Exam evaluation sheets are actually read, and urged schools to complete these if they had questions or comments about a particular exam. Schools may use Scantron sheets for Part I of the Math A and Math B exams. 

7. Steve Arnofsky’s rubric album of every question that ever appeared on a Math A Regents Examination, grouped by “key idea”, was distributed. 

8. Paul Cinco reported on the New York State Association of Supervisors of Mathematics conference at the Nevele. He read their goals aloud to the group. He urged all AMAPS members to get involved and distributed membership applications. Dues are $15 for the year. 

9.  Joe Pepe reported on a high school level meeting he attended at the Nevele NCSM conference. The concerns were as follows:

-Which months the Regents Exam should be offered.

-There is not enough turn-around time to mark the Regents Exams.

-Component re-testing for older students that are new to our system.

-The Buffalo school district has designed its own curriculum that includes Consumer Mathematics with Trigonometry.

-Provisional Certificates granted prior to 2004 still have 5 years to meet the requirement for permanent certification.